Toilet Travails

Tom Mottern grew tired of getting yelled at by his wife for that age-old spousal squabble: He leaves the toilet seat up.

So Mottern, owner of Osprey Custom Woodworking, fixed the quarrel the best way he knew how. He built something, an invention he calls LooLifts. It's a flat plastic semi-circle, with a diameter about half the size of a hockey puck that's taped to the underside of a toilet seat. Basically, it's a toilet seat handle, designed to make putting down or up the seat easy and (relatively) germ-free.

“You might remember to put it up,” says Mottern, “but no one puts it down.”

The product has also been an education in the difficulty of turning an invention into market success for Mottern and his business partner Mike Fogarty, a 25-year Proctor & Gamble employee. The duo, under the business Ospreyboys LLC, has invested at least $25,000 so far into research, production and marketing for LooLifts, named after a British word for toilet.

They envision a market in three categories: women, especially those who clean the home bathrooms; plumbers, who can give the branded LooLifts to clients; and municipalities, hotels, arena operators and any other entity that oversees multiple restrooms. Says Fogarty: “We think we have a very useful product that might catch on.”

Fogarty worked in the P&G division that launched Pringles potato chips. But that marketing challenge, backed by a multimillion-dollar budget, was a cinch compared to LooLifts. “The hardest part is to get it in people's hands,” says Fogarty.

The strategy is to focus on a social media and marketing campaign that highlights the quirky side of LooLifts. That begins with the motto, which is Up. Down. Done. “We wanted to do this with humor,” Mottern says. “Because when you are dealing with a toilet, it has to be humorous.”

The website, for example, includes a video that stars a blue stick figure one on side, a pink stick figure on the other side and a green toilet seat in between. The figures debate toilet seat etiquette until LooLifts saves the day.

Mottern made the first raw version of LooLifts in his garage with a coffee can lid. Mottern had done cabinetwork in Fogarty's home, and he knew about the client's past work at P&G. The pair formed a company together, and have since hired several outside firms to work on a website, search engine optimization, social media and marketing.

LooLifts, in a pack of three, retail for $9.99 and are sold through the company's website and in a few convenience stores in south Sarasota County. Fogarty plans to attend consumer and plumbing trade shows in the near future to push the product into more stores.

One other challenge is pricing in comparison to competing products. For instance, the Shandle, a toilet seat handle designed mostly for kids, sells for $2 apiece online. Fogarty says he and Mottern are currently reworking the pricing and packaging of LooLifts.

Fogarty is nonetheless optimistic over a solid future for LooLifts and Ospreyboys. He hopes LooLifts will be the first of several consumer products he and Mottern will design and sell together. Says Fogarty: “Our niche will be in low-cost, easy-to-manufacture products.”